Legislative Update

Joe Fitzgerald

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Legislative Update, August 31, 2021

On August 24th, by a party line vote of 220-212, the House of Representatives passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution which will serve as the blueprint for a sweeping agenda of social spending and climate action measures which comprise key elements of President Biden’s agenda. The resolution passed the Senate earlier this month.

Democratic leadership is employing the reconciliation process, a budget mechanism and parliamentary maneuver that will allow passage of the final package in the Senate by a simple majority rather than the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.^[i]

There had been an impasse within the House Democratic Conference as nine moderates were withholding their votes on the resolution to try and force a vote on the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package which also passed the Senate earlier this month. Due to the Democrat’s slim House majority and the unified Republican opposition to the $3.5 trillion resolution, leadership could not afford to lose more than three Democratic votes. The impasse was overcome when Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) guaranteed a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure package by September 27.

^[i] Reconciliation is authorized under the Congressional Budget Act. Each year Congress is supposed to pass a budget resolution which sets forth a plan for taxes and spending. It does not always do so. A budget resolution requires a simple majority in both houses. The Act permits the use of reconciliation provided that House and Senate pass a budget resolution that includes “reconciliation instructions.” Those instructions include targets for raising or lowering spending or revenues for a specific fiscal year or period of fiscal years.

Budget resolutions do not detail what legislative changes a committee should undertake in order to meet the targets included in the reconciliation instructions. Once the committees complete their work in drafting the budget committees in the House and Senate combine their recommendations into a single omnibus bill for consideration by both houses. The budget resolution and the ultimate omnibus bill are subject to a simple majority vote in both Houses.

The omnibus bill is still subject to requirements set forth in the Congressional Budget Act as well as the rules of the House and Senate.